The protest of independent farmers against the EU-Mercosur free trade agreement serves to note not only the risks, (1) but also the deep darkness about its contents. In this regard, reference is made to a report by the non-profit association Friends of Earth Europe. (2)
1) EU-Mercosur, 25 years of negotiations
The negotiations for a free trade agreement between the then 14 countries of the European Community (now 27, in the European Union) and the four member states of Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) started way back in 1999. (3)
The 25 passed years recorded the transfiguration of the agreements whose scope has progressively expanded:
-from the reduction of import duties on products arriving from partner countries (GATT, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)
-the elimination of Technical Barriers to Trade between groups of countries, with the establishment of the WTO (World Trade Organization, 2004)
-up to the development of ‘comprehensive agreements’ which end up requiring the contracting States to renounce legislative sovereignty in the name of investors’ interests. (4)
In 2019 a provisional political agreement was reached, which however was not ratified. (5) Also due to the harsh criticism from civil society on land theft, deforestation and pesticide floods. (6)
2) Deep darkness
The EU-Mercosur agreement could represent the agreement with the greatest impact, at a global level, on the trade of agri-food products. And yet:
-the text of the EU-Mercosur association agreement has never been made public by the institutions participating in the negotiations on behalf of 733 million citizens (284 million in the 4 Mercosur countries, 449 million in the 27 EU countries);
-news on the progress of the negotiations reaches the public only occasionally, through brief press releases and occasional ‘leaks’. (3)
The inaccessibility of the documents effectively excludes nearly a tenth of the world’s population from the debate on a treaty that could have significant repercussions on everyone’s existence.
3) Information, which rights?
TFEU (Treaty for the Functioning of the European Union), upon closer inspection, provides the following:
–‘in order to promote good governance and ensure the participation of civil society, the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the Union shall operate as transparently as possible’;
– ‘any citizen of the Union and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State has the right of access to documents of the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the Union’ (article 15, paragraph 1,2).
4) Participation, any rights?
The Treaty on European Union, in turn, prescribes that:
–‘decisions are taken in the most open and citizen-friendly manner possible’ (Article 10.3);
–‘the institutions give citizens and representative associations, through appropriate channels, the opportunity to make known and publicly exchange their opinions in all areas of Union action’ (article 11.1).
5) EU-Mercosur, the primacy of darkness
The start of negotiations on a trade agreement requires that EU member states give a mandate to the European Commission, through a negotiating directive that defines its main characteristics (political and economic parts, priorities).
The numerous criticisms on the opaqueness of the negotiations on TTIP and TiSA – also therefore interrupted (7,8) – as well as on CETA and JEFTA (9) have led the Commission to publish the negotiating directives, albeit belatedly. The mandate for the EU-Mercosur agreement has not yet been published, however.
5.1) Secret negotiations
Diplomats and bureaucrats negotiate the agreement on the basis of the negotiating mandate. The core elements of these negotiations are not discussed publicly on an ongoing basis, but are kept secret.
Civil society is informed at irregular intervals through the usual exchange of dialogues, the ‘Update on EU-Mercosur trade negotiations’ meetings, without however receiving relevant information or the possibility of asking or receiving answers to questions. (10)
5.2) Secret texts
Before the leaks on the trade side, published in December 2017 and February 2018 (18-19 years after the start of negotiations), the EU had only published draft texts, now outdated, of seven chapters and one annex.
Only thanks to the leaks citizens of the two continents were able to receive more information, even if late, on the various chapters of the agreement. (10)
The European Commission published, with a two-year delay, in July 2021, the part of the trade agreement concerning the opening of markets and the related annexes. (11) But the equally important chapter on ‘General Provisions’ is still unknown.
5.3) Unknown agreement
The trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur is the trade policy pillar of a more comprehensive association agreement, which also includes political dialogue and cooperation.
Some parts of the agreement had already been agreed in June 2018, while the political agreement on its text of the association agreement was reached in June 2020 and announced a month later.
To date the agreement has not been published, although it contains important parts (i.e. human and indigenous peoples’ rights, structure of the agreement and its bodies) and the trade section is not complete without it.
5.4) Statutory audit on standby
The international agreements are followed by a legal analysis of their compatibility with the legal systems of the contracting parties. Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis announced in September 2021 that the texts had not yet been subjected to the legal review process.
More than four years have passed since the political agreement but there is still no news of the legal revision of the texts and their translations, which can only take place after the re-definition of the negotiations. Perhaps then the negotiations are still ongoing? And if so, which parts are under discussion and in what terms?
5.5) Sustainability impact assessment (SIA)
The non-profit associations representing civil society impact assessment report serious shortcomings and delays in the impact report on the socio-environmental sustainability of the EU-Mercosur agreement, commissioned by the European Commission:
-the risks of negative impacts of the supply chains involved on biodiversity, CO2 emissions (also linked to international transport) and human rights are ‘massively underestimated’;
-the impact assessment was published in April 2021, almost a year after the parties reached the political agreement, without therefore being able to consider it. This delay was also censured, albeit in vain, by the European Ombudsman. (11)
The Committee for Human Rights of the United Nations, in October 2023, also called for a ‘systematic’ investigation into the impact of the agreement on human rights. (12)
5.6) Additional protocol
Since December 2020, Brussels has been in talks on an additional protocol to the EU-Mercosur agreement, with the idea of correcting some problems raised by civil society and facilitating its approval by the Council and the European Parliament.
Friends of the Earth Europe (FOEE) had requested access to the documents, but received no response. The draft additional protocol – later made public thanks to a leak– turned out to be a mediocre act of greenwashing, according to civil society experts. (13)
6) Democracy?
Fundamental decisions for the lives of nearly a tenth of the world’s population are taken on their behalf without even informing them. What democracy, what rights?
Dario Dongo
Footnotes
(1) Dario Dongo. Brussels, farmers against EU-Mercosur agreement. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 11.11.24
(2) Friends of Earth Europe. EU-Mercosur association agreement: the lost transparency. February, 2024 https://tinyurl.com/mr3vxpnf
(3) EU-Mercosur directives de negociacion, par la Commission, d’un agreement d’association entre le parties. Brussels, 17 September 1999. Leak collected on bilaterals.org https:// www.bilaterals.org/?ue-mercosur-directives-de&clang=en.
(4) Dario Dongo, Sabrina Bergamini. EU Court of Justice. FT (Food Times). May 6, 2019
(5) Dario Dongo, Giulia Torre. EU – Mercosur, toxic agreement on trade. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). July 14, 2019
(6) Dario Dongo. Brazil, deforestation is compounded by pesticide carnage. Unsustainable EU-Mercosur Agreement. FT (Food Times). April 21, 2021
(7) Dario Dongo. Chlorinated chicken, hormone meats and new GMOs from the US? TTIP, no thanks. FT (Food Times). February 1, 2020
(8) Plurilateral Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). European Parliament https://tinyurl.com/4834dm55
(9) Dario Dongo, Giulia Torre. EU-Japan, relationship without precautions. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade).
(10) EU-Mercosur FTA: 27 draft chapters (Feb 2018). Bilaterals.org https://tinyurl.com/3dkjepv5
(11) European Ombudsman. Decision in case 1026/2020/MAS concerning the failure by the European Commission to finalize an updated ‘sustainability impact assessment’ before concluding the EU-Mercosur trade negotiations https://tinyurl.com/2u7svxh8
(12) Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Concluding observations on the third periodic report of Brazil. OHCHR. October 13, 2023 https://tinyurl.com/bdzkba2d
(13) Breaking: Civil society denounce leaked joint instrument on EU-Mercosur deal as blatant greenwashing. Friends of Earth Europe. March 22, 2023 https://tinyurl.com/4yey9xpj
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
